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99 R1 Transmission help !!!


ICECOLD

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I'm thinking about picking up a 1999 Yamaha R1 but, 2nd gear is out of it and I need for someone to fix it... Do you guys know anyone that can do it, and do you know how much it cost to be done. If it is too much I just wont mess with it... Thank you...

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to do any sort of transmission work is going to involve dropping the engine and splitting the cases. to a lot of people the first reaction is "ZOMG!" but its really not that hard. the bottom end is sooo much easier to work with than the top end.

cost - without looking at fiche charts, assuming your going to order new gears, AND assuming its similar setup to mine, its probably going to be around 200-250 dollars, depending on how much the 2nd/6th gears are, gaskets, misc items, and any oops mistakes along the way.

as long as your semi decent in organization, have a decent area to work with and are handy with a wrench your golden. the only special tools you need to buy are snapring pliers, clutch holder (can be bought and returned at your local shop...), and adjuster bolt tool (can be cheaply made out of cutting sockets instead of buying the $70 yamaha tool).

again this is assuming its a lot like mine, which i believe it is.

and i've never done anything like this before, cars or bikes, and it wasn't hard at all.

link to my progress

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your going to have a lot of gaskets to replace, and its gonna get costly, make SURE you have the service manual when you do it, and lookup on the fiche the prices of all the gaskets and parts your going to need. your basically rebuilding the entire engine to do this. Because pretty much everything has to come apart to change out a transmission gear. while your in there, inspect everything to make sure its ok, check your cylinder and piston, valves and seats, everything. The service manual will give procedures on how to do this. would suck to get it back together and figure out a shifting fork is bent or something. anyway if you go over the entire engine checking every possible wear part, its gonna end up taking some time. honestly I would not buy a bike that needed 2nd gear replaced, unless I was getting it for like 500 bucks and the bike was worth 4000 or something. its a lot of work. If 2nd gear needs replaced, they were tearing on the engine pretty hard, and possibly you are going to find other stuff with significant wear inside that you will want to replace, before you know it, you've got way more money in the bike than you wanted to spend, just one possible scenario.

Edited by 12oclocker
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I pulled the transmission and replaced a bearing on a gsxr750 it was pretty easy and took a day. The only cost was the bearing $50, suzuki seallent $20, side cover gasket $15 and oil. R1 and R6 are known for loosing 2nd gear from pullin wheelies. Personally if I couldn't do the work myself I would not buy the bike. Call the Yamaha dealer in your area and get the worst case scenario repair price.

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its not from pulling wheelies, i believe some older gixxer's had this problem as well.

it is a "design flaw" by yamaha/suzuki which resulted in the dogs on 6th gear (yes 6th) wearing too fast.

quick fyi on how transmission works (might be a little off, but you get the general idea), motorcycle trans are constant mech meaning every gear is rotating all the time, the way it engages a gear is through the side by use of dogs (splined gear)/dog recesses (free floating gear). see below the dogs sticking up slot over into the holes in the gear (pic below) beside it.

the yamaha's (maybe suzuki's) had 3 dogs on the 6th gear (the dogs themselves were on 6th gear, but engages 2nd...) and supposedly there was too great a gap between 1st/2nd gear ratio's causing too much stress on the dogs, which caused them to jump out of their recess and have a momentary "neutral/clutch slip" feel.

03+ they changed the design to use 5 dogs instead of three, exact same setup as far as tooth count, pitch etc, just different number of dogs. the also changed their design to a more squarish angle instead of round as the first gens were. with the 5 dogs its a simple equation.

previously it was stress/3 and now its stress/5 which results in lower stress for the dogs.

6th gear dogs (first gen)

DSCN1261.jpg

2nd gear recess (first gen)

DSCN1262.jpg

second gens are exactly the same except 5 dogs and square cut. sorry no pics of the second gen gear for comparison...

result of jumping out of gear when its supposed to be in gear:

DSCN1255.jpg

scrape marks and its bent...

to iceman: if you can get a cheap deal on this bike id say go ahead and get it, the transmission work isn't hard at all. but id be hesitant at buying a bike that already has a problem. i bought mine without knowing about this second gear problem it already had...

Edited by natedogg624
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Well if it is a design flaw then its still going to be flawed after you " fix " it. I have 2 gsxr 750s and have never heard of anyone having trouble with a gsxr 2nd gear.

There were issues that some experienced. For example, I dropped 2nd gear in my 01 GSXR750. Basically, I am not hard on trannies and it just was to a point it failed. No biggie. On my 05 750, I lost 6th gear and again, not hard on trannies.

One thing to understand here is that you can damage a tranny and hurt it by doing things other than wheelies. You can bend shift forks by forcing the shifter into gear. Hard inputs on down shifts or up shifts can bend shifter forks. You can also low side and hit the shifter and cause a bent fork...

The gear going out is not a design flaw. Constant mesh trannies are great and are like anything mechanical - they wear with time and abuse. Sometimes from both and sometimes with only one of those occurring...

Another thing is that tranny fixes are easy if you are competent. First timers? Not suggested. It is very important how things are assembled and taken apart. Getting it all back together and running is fine - it's how it will hold up over another 5 years that will indicate the success of it.

I wouldn't be afraid of fixing it. If the tranny is out, you should replace all the shifter forks anyways and the gears aren't really that expensive. Plus, you'll get a new tranny out of it and if done right, you'll never have issue.

As far as if it were a design flaw and will be again, many times if it is a deal where it is a change in design of a part, the OEM will change it when people order the parts. They will have a superceeded number for the original part and you'll get a redone piece that should hold up better.

Example - the 2000 GSXR750 had a hollow shifter rod. They were twisting and causing issues. At the tracks, you could get one from a Suzuki rep, but in 2001, they made a running change. Never told anyone, but it was changed. If you order the part number for the 2000 750, you'll get the newer solid shifter as opposed to the hollow one like when it was stock...

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Well if it is a design flaw then its still going to be flawed after you " fix " it. I have 2 gsxr 750s and have never heard of anyone having trouble with a gsxr 2nd gear.

i dont know for sure, i just read about them. I dont know as much about suzuki's as i do Yamaha's. As for the fix, just as Lizard said, they come out with new parts to replace the old "bad" parts. if you go on mrcycles.com you can see there is the part # and sometimes in red next to it says "(replaces old part # xx-xx...)"

Another thing is that tranny fixes are easy if you are competent. First timers? Not suggested. It is very important how things are assembled and taken apart. Getting it all back together and running is fine - it's how it will hold up over another 5 years that will indicate the success of it.

you mean i have to wait 5 whole years before i know if i did a good job or not!? omfg.gif

i was told its more along the lines of a few 100 miles...

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i dont know for sure, i just read about them. I dont know as much about suzuki's as i do Yamaha's. As for the fix, just as Lizard said, they come out with new parts to replace the old "bad" parts. if you go on mrcycles.com you can see there is the part # and sometimes in red next to it says "(replaces old part # xx-xx...)"

you mean i have to wait 5 whole years before i know if i did a good job or not!? omfg.gif

i was told its more along the lines of a few 100 miles...

Oh, you'll know if you did it wrong right away for sure. I'm saying things like not replacing the things you should have and you'll have a failure as late as 5 years depending on how many miles and what you do with the bike. YMMV type of deal...

Yes, if done wrong, you'll know quite quickly...

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lol calm down dude.

necessary? no it wasn't, i could have chosen better words... my apologies to you sir phugitive.

wheelies aren't the only reason for the gears going bad. actually, i dont see any physical reason for wheelies ruining gears. i can see them ruining the clutch, sure. gears no.

my reasoning behind this, im not expert so this is open for debate: when you wheelie, say for sake of example a "clutch-up," you are already in second gear (or whatever your gear of choice is), no? the gears going bad on the yamaha's are due to dog's wearing down from the gear slotting into the recess, during the shifting process. with doing any kind of wheelie, power or clutch, the gear is already engaged. therefore the gear is already slotted over via shift drum/fork and dogs are engaged. there is no gears changing slots, and there is no shifting involved when clutching up wheelies, unless you shift through wheelies. even then its just a normal power shift, which that results in minimal wear and tear.

is that reasonable?

Edited by natedogg624
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lol calm down dude.

necessary? no it wasn't, i could have chosen better words... my apologies to you sir phugitive.

wheelies aren't the only reason for the gears going bad. actually, i dont see any physical reason for wheelies ruining gears. i can see them ruining the clutch, sure. gears no.

my reasoning behind this, im not expert so this is open for debate: when you wheelie, say for sake of example a "clutch-up," you are already in second gear (or whatever your gear of choice is), no? the gears going bad on the yamaha's are due to dog's wearing down from the gear slotting into the recess, during the shifting process. with doing any kind of wheelie, power or clutch, the gear is already engaged. therefore the gear is already slotted over via shift drum/fork and dogs are engaged. there is no gears changing slots, and there is no shifting involved when clutching up wheelies, unless you shift through wheelies. even then its just a normal power shift, which that results in minimal wear and tear.

is that reasonable?

I've been riding wheelies for years, and never had any transmission problems ever, in fact, all my bikes run perfect. Its the high speed banging gears thats hard on a transmission. I've replaced clutches before, but thats about the only premature wear I've ever cause on a bike.

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